A huge "ghost town", which has everything except the inhabitants

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Kangbashi is a new city, a world-class architectural masterpiece, built in the barren desert of northern China in less than a decade. Very little time passed, and Kangbashi became the center of attention of the world community. In this "ghost town" was not the most important thing - people.

Chinese Kangbashi is called the modern "ghost town". Many consider the project of the city of 2 million to be initially stillborn and utopian.

The first reports that Kangbashi had become a "ghost town" appeared in 2009. Reporter Al Jazeera and photographer from Time Magazine told the world the story that there are no people in the new city. It was so, but the fact that the city was built quite recently was not taken into account.

In the first five years of construction, Kangbashi completely erected the entire city center. It is teeming with grandiose government buildings, a world-class museum, an opulent opera house, a library, and a significant amount of commercial housing.

At first, almost no one wanted to move to Kangbashi, since there were only jobs and no communal facilities. Schools and hospitals were completed only after two or three years. This was exactly the period when Kangbashi "became famous" in the media as a "ghost town". In addition, real estate prices at that time were too high for most Chinese. Currently, the new city is home to only 100,000 people. This is a third more than it was three years ago.

Amazingly, most of the vacant apartments in Kangbashi have now been sold. 80-90% of them have owners. Most of the unoccupied houses were bought "in reserve" at marriage, and for future children. It is also a good long term investment.

One of the reasons for Kangbashi's “unpopularity” for housing was unsuccessful development. Government buildings and workplaces are very far apart.

Other disadvantages are also noticeable. The most important of them is huge distances. Trying to make the city look like Beijing, the architects overdid it. The streets are 40 meters wide, and the intersections are almost half a kilometer apart.

All of this physically separates people from the places where they work, from shops, entertainment venues, public buildings, and also from each other. Basically, to buy bread or milk, you need to go by car for several blocks.

It takes an effort to find people in Kangbashi. Just walking along the gigantic central square, where the most significant sights are located, you will hardly find them. Most of the passers-by are dressed in orange city service jackets.

The government is investing a lot of money to save Kangbashi. There is a green area, the streets are full of vegetation, trees and flower beds. All intersections, even in the absence of rare cars, are regulated by traffic lights.

Another "ghost town" is located near Shanghai. In the "English" town of Thames Town, there are many more tourists than native residents.